


Mostly void. Partially stars.

by Slant



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Angst, Existential Angst, F/M, Nihilism, Passive-aggression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2514899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akio destroys Utena's conception of herself as "the prince", only to find out that the self behind the role is incapable of considering that he or anything else might have value.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Mostly void. Partially stars.

"That's a very romantic story ... I don't think I ever thought of the night sky like that. It always makes me feel small and terrified and alone. When I was young I'd look up at the endless void and it would feel like I could fall into it forever. As I grew up I found out that I and everything else is actually in the process of doing just that."

"I didn't always cope with it as well as I do now ... if all things must fall into emptiness, then what's the point of doing anything? Nothing anyone does will mark the stars, and even if it could ... when you look up at the night sky, there's a trillion times more void than there is stars. No one has any stories about the gaps between the stars, do they? It's just too big and all human striving and ambition is petty besides that eternal absence."

"Can you even hold those ideas in your head at the same time? Think about, I dunno, Touga proud and filled with material wealth and success and surrounded by his adoring harem and then think of the boundless emptiness of intergalactic space and try to imagine how anything could possibly care about him or his achievements." 

"And even on this..." Utena makes a gesture meant to encompass the Earth and everything in and on it. "Microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, humanity has a paper-thin eyeblink existence, almost too small and too dim and too brief to see."

Utena does not remove the rose crest from her finger; she knows that it symbolises nothing of value, knows that removing it is an empty gesture with no audience. She tells Anthy her truth; habits engrained by constant repartition endure after they cease to have meaning.  
"I will not be revolutionizing the world with you Anthy; the world shall keep on turning, if we will it or not. You shouldn't worry. The student council won't do anything." She ventures a smile, but it comes out as a twitch, like a lizard across a hot rock.

Anthy threatens her with poison, and she drinks her tea without a word. Anthy does not bother to feign suicide. 

Neither Akio nor Anthy need telling; the sword in her heart is gone, plain as day. The game is hopelessly broken - there can be no dual called Revolution. Akio can not take a sword that doesn't exist and hurl it at the rose casket until something breaks. They could start over- set up the pieces again for yet another try, but the black rose gambit is played out and it would take a generation to find another Mikage and the silent void in Utena's heart tears at intention like the chill vacuum of space swallowing life or hope.

The other dualists, no longer subjected to Akio's plans, drift away, find themselves in the world, make a home in it, do things to which they assign meaning, and then cease. Anthy drifts through Otori, wanders aimlessly. One day, months after the dual that never was, by accident rather than intention, she steps over the threshold. No one assigns any meaning to the event. Over the following endless slow-changing Otori-years, she drifts further. The roses wilt and die. No one cares. One day she does not come back.

Utena and Akio stay. Otori crumbles around them- he can not see the purpose in maintaining the dream. He is bound to the last dualist and she is chained to her dread-of-existence.  
Perhaps somewhere, deep in their hearts, the Prince is laughing at them.  
Perhaps the laughter comes from the abyss.

**Author's Note:**

> There are half a decillion cubic light years of nothing.


End file.
